Once again, Congressman Duncan has shown the courage to oppose the worst instincts of his own party. He said on the House floor that "I believe 80 percent of Republicans would have opposed the war in Iraq if it had been started by President (Bill) Clinton or (Al) Gore, and probably almost all the Democrats would have been supporting it, as they did the bombings in Bosnia and Kosovo (during the Clinton administration)," and proceeded to vote against the attempt by House Republicans to turn the war from a liabilty to a political plus. Daniel Larison has the goods on the new House Majority Leader and his scheme:

House Majority Leader Boehner shows that he deserves to lead the morally and politically bankrupt GOP majority by embracing its most indefensible and dreadful policy with absolute conviction and the willful blindness that has characterised its most adamant defenders since the beginning. Most news reports neglected to include Rep. Boehner's most inflammatory and offensive comment (which I saw in this morning's WSJ print edition), when he said:

It's time to stand up and vote. Is it al Qaeda or is it America?

Presumably he thinks that voting for his position on Iraq puts you in league with America rather than al Qaeda (some choice!). If Mr. Boehner really wants to cast the divide over Iraq policy that starkly, he had better be ready for the response, and he may find that he is actually on the wrong side of that rhetorical question.

The beauty part is that Glenn Reynolds -- Knoxville's Barney Fife in the War on Terror -- thinks the resolution is a good reason to vote Republican in the forthcoming election; but his Republican representative voted with most of the Democrats.

Resolved, That the House of Representatives-- (1) honors all those Americans who have taken an active part in the Global War on Terror, whether as first responders protecting the homeland, as servicemembers overseas, as diplomats and intelligence officers, or in other roles;

Diplomats and intelligence officers? Like Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame?

If you read through all the Whereases in the resolution, you won't find any mention of Saddam's fantasy of one day building a nuclear weapon in this rewrite of rationale for invading Iraq. That omission plus the honors for diplomats and intelligence officers suggests the real purpose of this do-nothing legislation: it's the Joseph Wilson Appeasement Act of 2006!

Surely this signals a new era of reconciliation between the Republicans and the American people. Soon we will see an honest assessment of the intelligence loss inflicted by the outing of Brewster & Jennings, the consultancy front used as cover by Plame and other CIA agents. The drunk American responsible for tipping off Iran to the fact that we could decrypt their communiques will surely be named and given the traitor's expulsion he deserves.

All hail the coming era of honesty that will allow us to learn from and correct our errors rather than denying, obscuring and perpetuating them! All hail theJoseph Wilson Appeasement Act of 2006!

As I recall Jimmy Duncan stated publicly in late 2002 that intelligence information he had indicated that Iraq was not a threat to anybody outside its borders and would not be for many years.

He also had the audacity to predict that war with Iraq would cost the American taxpayers in excess of 200 billion dollars.

How different the world might be if Mr. Bush had chosen to finish the task before him in Afghanistan – a task which enjoyed the blessing of most of the civilized world – instead of marching off into a swamp because that ogre tried to kill his daddy.